I have recently studied Elasticity in materials. There was a question about breaking stress that if the area along which a linear force is applied is doubled, then what happens to the breaking stress. The answer was that it becomes twice. However, in some other question it was asked on what factor does the breaking stress. The answer given was only the nature of the material. So on what factors does it actually depend? Nature of material, cross-sectional area, shape of the object etc.
Also,
when
does
a
material
break
when
some
force
is
applied
to
it?
Is
it
when
a
particular
stress
limit
is
reached, or
when
a
particular
strain
limit
is
reached
or
when
stress/strain
approaches
a
definite
value?
All
questions
here
deal
with
the
Young's
Modulus
(longitudinal stress and strain).
Best Answer
Breaking stress is an intrinsic property of a material. It depends on nothing but the nature of the material. In the first part you may have been asked about the breaking 'force' or something like that; breaking stress is fixed.
A material breaks when both the 'stress on it' and 'strain in it' increases (in fact both are related by the modulus of elasticity). But since what 'we' can control is stress, we usually talk about breaking stress and not worry about anything like breaking strain.
Hope this helps!